


Hanging by a Moment

by karrenia_rune



Category: Sanctuary - Fandom
Genre: Character POV community: femmefic Round 3, Gen, Sanctuary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-30
Updated: 2010-10-30
Packaged: 2017-10-12 23:26:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate, while filing a post mission report, realizes just how much of a void the loss of Ashley Magnus really has had on<br/>all of their lives, her own included.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hanging by a Moment

Disclaimer: Sanctuary and the characters who appear here or are mentioned belong  
to the SyFy Channel and its producers etc; they are not mine and are only  
'borrowed' for the purposes of the story. Written for Round 3 of the Multifandom  
Femme Ficathon. The prompt was: Kate Freelander "I miss Ashley more and more  
every day."

"Hanging by a Moment" by karrenia

Her taste in music, fashion and men have always tended to run the gamut from the usual run-of-the-mill to the extreme without much of the happy medium to even things out.

Kate Freelander had never really cared all that much for whether or not where she landed in between those extremes as far as other folk's opinions would weigh in so long as she happened to always land on her feet.

It is a very difficult habit to break; after all she and her brother spent the better half of the misspent and rebellious teenage years perfecting that and other varied skills. That is until she met Will Zimmerman and through him Doc Magnus and her daughter, Ashley, and the others.

`Let's face it,' thought Kate. "My attempt to gain access to the Sanctuary let alone her take part in their little group dynamic did get off to, shall we say, a very rocky start.

However, through hard work and a determination to prove herself that surprised herself as much due to Will's influence and considerable patience she had managed to earn their trust and hopefully their respect..

She had also discovered a side of herself that she had thought long buried under a layer of cynicism, confidence in her own abilities and the attitude of someone who was out to get rich quick regardless of the fallout and damn the consequences; a passionate, reasoned side to herself.

Sometimes there would always been a downside to allowing herself to come to care for someone; and she had pointed that out to Will on more than on occasion; however Will being his adorable psyche-babbling, passionate and caring himself seemed to provide the optimist to her hard-headed realist.

It was a nice if sometimes rocky balance which worked out pretty well for them both and she did enjoy a challenge. She smiled as that particular thought crossed her mind and rocked back and forth in the cherry-wood chair that she had been occupying for some time now.

In all the craziness it was nice to enjoy a little down-time, after all this time she still did find post-mission reports just a little bit on the tedious side but the Doc was nothing if not meticulous and she reached over to up the volume on her music player and then adjusted the lay of the headphones, humming along in time with the music.

Kate realized with a start that the constant repetition of back and forth, back and forth had lulled her into almost soporific effect.

She pulled herself back into a sitting position with a start and blinked.

A moment later she came to another realization: It had been almost what? Two, three months since the final throw down with the Cabal and their heavies, and in all that time Magnus had not uttered one word, not one syllable to her, to anyone, not since before and after Ashley's funeral.

Kate had wondered at that: Will, the Big Guy, Henry; all of the members of their little crew had been puzzled but apparently had little it fall by the wayside in the press of more urgent concerns.

Their speculation over the oddness of Helen Magnus determined and studied silence on this subject had run the gamut of emotional fallout from mystified, to anger, to relief, and back and forth again. `But what the hell? Who was she to question the 'I'm always right Dr. Helen Mangus right?'

It still rankled and at that precise moment she had another realization which struck with all the force of a sucker punch to the gut. "Well, Damn her, and damn the consequences; and for good mature the hell with the Cabal for taking Ashley away from all of us!"

The heat of her anger surprised her, and she thought in the back of her mind; who am I angrier at? Myself, Magnus, the Cabal? All three, the fact that Ashley's gone, or the fact that the reason she's dead is because the Cabal turned her against us?'

Kate reached up and ran her fingers through her hair as she sorted through the turmoil of her jumbled emotions. Ashley had been more or less her own age, a wild free-spirit, full of joy and laughter someone who rode perilously close to +the edge and enjoyed every nanosecond of it.

"She could also be pretty damned effective in a fight, too," Kate recalled. "While it was a thrill to watch it could also be pretty damn scary, at the same time." Her cynical side choose that moment to point out that was probably another reason the Cabal saw to exploit; but Kate chose to squash that line of thought.

"The hell if I know, right now. I just know that I miss Ashley, more and more every day.'

In the back of her mind she wondered if Ashley's ghost, spirit was capable of overhearing and if so would approve of her current line of reflective thought, and if so, would be laughing at this well, private tribute as it were. Kate allowed herself a wry twisting of her mouth that could be termed something in between a grimace and a wry grin.

With that Kate Freelander sat upright in her chair and returned her attention to finishing her post-mission report, the devil-may-care gleam back in her eye feeling as yet unnoticed invisible weight seem to lift from her shoulders.

Aloud she said. "I don't know if I want to talk this over with Will or not, I don't know if he'll understand, but I do know that it's something I guess I needed to sort out for myself."

And then finally, as she keyed in the last line on her report and hit the save on the drop-down menu on the computer she thought: "Well, if that don't beat all? Kate Freelander cares, she actually cares. Who knew?'

**Author's Note:**

> originally written and posted for lar-laughs in the live journal community: Femme Ficathon, Round 3


End file.
